Rage Across Gundam Seed
by drakensis
Summary: A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist — a savage healer on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a World of Darkness.
1. Chapter 1

**January 25th, C.E. 71**

**Heliopolis, LaGrange Point Three**

On a bench in a Heliopolis park, a strange tableau was laid out. Looming over the trees, an advanced looking mobile suit knelt on the ground. On one of the benches lay a woman wearing orange coveralls - Lieutenant Maria Ramius of the Earth Alliance, wounded earlier in the day by one of the ZAFT commandos who had successfully seized four of the five Mobile Suit prototypes developed jointly by the Atlantic Federation and the Orb Union.

Watching over the Lieutenant was a young woman, Mirialla Haw, who was providing little more than nervous chaperonage to the man tending the lieutenant's wounds. "She's waking," she cried as Maria groaned and rolled her head.

"Ayup," the man replied, knotting off a bandage he'd wrapped around Maria's shoulder. "I'll rely on your testimony as to my conduct then."

Maria's brown eyes flickered and then she reflexively jerked away from the man, recoiling almost off the bench before he caught hold of her with a firm grip. "Don't move yet," he ordered absently.

"Kira!" called the girl, summoning one of the young men who had been attending to the giant robot only a few metres away.

Maria's eyes hardened as she remembered the earlier events of the day - the sudden attack and the loss of the mobiles suits, being shot by one of the raiders and then the desperate fight as first she and then the young man she saw approaching had fought off a ZAFT GINN in the towering Strike Gundam, only to be stunned when the damaged mobile suit self-destructed almost on top of them.

"I'm so sorry," Kira began, looking ashamed of himself. "It was my fault."

"Keh," the man said dismissively. "Those commando types all running around, shooting guns, and then those giants fighting - the lad's probably the only reason you got off so lightly, and all he does is apologise."

"Have some water," the girl offered and Maria accepted the offered bottle, glad for a moment to think before having to respond to Kira. She was puzzled at why the boy wasn't looking straight at her, then realised that her jumpsuit was open to the waist and had been tugged off her right side. Her reflexive attempt to cover herself didn't do much more than lose the water bottle (Kira caught it before it reached the ground) and elicit a yelp as she put pressure on her shoulder.

"I had to open your shirt to get to the shoulder," the man told her calmly after she had steadied herself. "Strictly professional - the lass can vouch for my behaviour."

Maria was trying to regain her composure when a snatch of conversation came from the three boys still entranced by the war machine.

"This is a great Gundam. Can you move it or not?"

"You guys, don't mess with it!" called the oldest of them, who remained on the ground. As a wonder, the boy in the cockpit emerged without trying to move it.

"Why is it grey again?" asked the third boy.

"Because the main battery is off," replied the second boy.

"Stay away from it!" Maria shouted, her pistol in her hand almost before she realised it. A warning shot glanced off the armor plate between the pair on the machine and they cringed reflexively. An instant later, the gun was out of her hand and she whirled, eyes tracking it, to see the man who claimed to have treated her wound holding the pistol by the barrel.

"What are you doing?" Kira protested. "They're the ones who brought you out of the machine when you were unconscious!"

Maria ignored him glaring up at the only adult in the group. He returned her stare with an air of amusement, then examined the pistol and tentatively tapped one of the levers, causing the clip to fall to the ground. "Tsk," he said, working the action in a professional manner quite unlike the awkward grip he'd used earlier, and letting the live round eject into the air. "I'm so clumsy today. This is yours, I believe," he added innocently and passed the empty gun to her.

"Who are you?" Maria asked, cautiously accepting the weapon.

"A roll of the dice that went your way," the man replied. Now that she looked at him, he was out of place amongst the little group. Not just in age - although he certainly looked closer to her age than any of the teenagers - but in everything! He was almost painfully thin, his tall frame topped with a ragged beard and shaggy locks of corn-blond hair that was obviously the result of neglect rather than deliberate styling. His clothes were odd - a red leather jacket, tough pants and a shirt that looked like it belonged in a video of the pre-Cosmic Era times - and his eyes... Maria shivered as she looked into those grey-blue eyes. She had never realised how dark that shade could be when the eyes were shadowed by more than just the light. "The name is Thomas Finn."

It was almost a relief as the kids introduced themselves. If nothing else, it gave her an opportunity to palm a spare clip of ammunition from her belt and slip it discreetly into her pistol. "I thank you for saving me. My name is Maria Ramius. I am a Second Lieutenant of the Allied Military," Maria told them. "I'm sorry, but that is the military's top secret. It's not something people should touch."

"What? Kira was the one who was operating the machine," protested Tolle.

"I cannot let you go," Maria added, raising the gun again, this time keeping the gun pointed squarely at Thomas, who was evidently the major threat.

"WHAT?"

"Whatever the reason, since you guys saw the secret, you have to stay with me until I have contacted the official board of directors and receive their orders."

The babble that exploded was almost louder than the sound of a gunfight and Maria was about to fire off another round (into the air this time) to get their attention when there was a sharp crack from the back of the group as Thomas clapped his hands together. "Lieutenant Ramius is correct," he said firmly.

"We're Heliopolis citizens!" Sai protested. "We are neutral! We have nothing to do with the military and those sort of things."

Thomas pointed up at the Gundam. "That was built here wasn't it? For the Allied Military? That doesn't sound neutral to me. I don't think that those commando boys believed it either. They came in shooting - that puts all of us in the middle of a war whether we like it or not. And in any war there are only two sorts of people - those who act and those who are acted upon. The latter are called victims and I don't recommend it."

"But why can't we just go to one of the shelters!" protested Mirialla.

"Because the other side would hunt you down to find out what you know about the Gundam," Thomas said bleakly. "And the lieutenant's side would hunt you down to keep you from telling it. Unless you think you can take them both on, your best shot is to co-operate with one group or another - and she's here and has a gun."

"What about you?" Kira asked.

"She smells trustworthy," Thomas answered. "So I guess I'll trust her. For now, anyway." Then he brightened. "Besides, someone has to look after than gunshot wound of hers. I'm sure that that leaves me with some sort of moral obligation to take off her shirt again..."

Maria almost shot him.

.oOo.

"Which one is the power pack?" Kira called down as the Strike knelt by the large truck that Sai, Tolle and Kuzzey had retrieved from Morgenroete on Maria's instructions, while Kira tried fruitlessly to contact any Earth Alliance forces in the area and Thomas and Mirialla tended to the wounded woman. The truck had opened up to display a number of components, some of them obviously weapons, even to his inexperienced eye.

"The weapons and the power pack are together," Maria shouted back up to him as he leaned out of the hatch. "Just put them on."

Down below, Mirialla and Kuzzey were helping Sai puzzle out the controls on the side of the truck that would, in theory, raise the components to connect to the mobile suit. It all seemed like a carefully thought out package - or to put it another way, a very well-accessorised military weapon. Admittedly the help of the two younger teens was entirely moral as they took the opportunity to get out from under Maria's gimlet eye.

Their speculations on the well-being of their families and how long they could expect to be diverted by this madcap military incident before things went back to normal were interrupted as explosions wreathed the spinal column above them. The column was far enough away to look deceptively tin, but the two war machines that emerged from the explosions grew rapidly in size as they dived towards the little group.

The pale grey ZAFT mobile suit was in the lead, but the orange mobile armor was in close pursuit and pulled off a last minute interception to force the CGUE away from the truck at the last moment.

"Put it on!" Maria screamed to Kira, running towards the shelter of the truck with Thomas close on her heels.

Up in the sky, the two fighting machines clashed again and actually came close enough for the CGUE to lop off the muzzle of the armor's spinal cannon. Now free to engage Kira, the suit plunged down but the brief respite bought by the Earth Forces fighter had been long enough. The Launcher pack locked into place and colour flooded across the armoured surfaces as the phase-shift armour activated.

There was another arrival however, and Thomas dived for Maria, bearing her to the floor as explosions engulfed a section of forest only a few dozen metres away. Out of the black and orange smoke, a white shape emerged, it's gleaming hull trimmed in crimson and blue.

"A dragon..." the man hissed as he saw the winged ship flying overhead, drawing the attention of the two giants about to do battle.

The ZAFT pilot recovered first and after a burst of cannon fire failed to hit the smoothly maneuvering ship above, he turned and dived to try the same against the Strike. Thomas bounced to his feet, heaving a startled Maria up with him and she was practically over his shoulder as he hustled the other kids behind the truck's dubious protection, Kira shuffling his huge ride to provide the more substantial shield of his sophisticated armour.

The ship above them did not hesitate to come to their protection, a quartet of missiles chasing the CGUE away along the colony, but the cure might well be worse than the disease Thomas thought warily, seeing the explosions of the missiles against what looked like some sort of structural member.

Kira, with better vision naturally (not to mention the advanced sensors of the Strike) was even more concerned by the damage, and unlike Thomas, he was in a position to take action, unlimbering the massive cannon that was part of the Launcher package.

"Wait!" Maria screamed. "That's too..."

The beam of energy lashed out across the colony, blasting an arm away from the agile mobile suit but expending the bulk of it's energy against the colony's outer hull. Even Thomas, who was only vaguely aware of the structure of the colony, paled as the result became clear: a massive hole that was already beginning to vent the colony cylinder's atmosphere out into space.

.oOo.

A few minutes later, the ship was at rest close to the surface and Kira was able to carry the little group up to the vessel by using the mobile suit's hands as a makeshift platform. They were subdued as the Strike landed at the mouth of a chamber obviously scaled for such a machine. Although an automatic system had sealed the hole in the cylinder, the kids had had a terrifying reminder of how fragile their homes were in the face of even incidental damage from military hardware.

"Lieutenant Ramius!" came a call from further inside the cavernous hanger and a little group in Earth Alliance uniforms came running towards Maria as she led the little group down from the hands of the Strike Gundam, Kira having kindly carried them all up and onto the ship. "I'm relieved to see that you're alright," continued the woman in the lead.

"And you," Maria replied. "I'm pleased to see that you were able to protect the Archangel. You saved us," she added, referring to the ZAFT mobile suit that had left rather than face the ship and the Strike Gundam at one time.

Up above this little conversation, the Gundam's hatch opened, and a rather woeful looking Kira emerged, drawing surprised looks from the military personnel. "Come on," protested a scruffy looking man in coveralls. "What's going on here? He's only a kid. You mean that child piloted that thing?"

"That child," Thomas remarked sarcastically, "took out another Mobile Suit as easily as you or I take out a bag of trash."

"Lieutenant Ramius, what's going on?"

Maria was at a loss for words, but an interruption saved her from having to give an immediate response.

"Wow, what a surprise," came a voice from behind the ships crew and an blond man emerged from the shadows, wearing a grey and violet flight suit. "I'm Lieutenant Mu La Flaga of the Seventh Orbital Fleet." He saluted. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Lieutenant Maria Ramius of Sector Two, Fifth Special Division," Maria replied, returning the salute.

"Ensign Natarle Badgiruel of the same division," added the lady leading the crew. Thomas choked his laugh off into his fist - she didn't look like a 'bad girl'.

"I'd like authorisation to board this ship," Mu said, ignoring the dirty look that Natarle was shooting at Thomas. "Who's in charge here?"

Natarle lowered her eyes. "The captain and top officers of this ship have all perished in battle," she admitted. Thomas stifled his amusement immediately. "Therefore, I believe Lieutenant Ramius is now in command." Maria gaped speechlessly at the Ensign. "Only a dozen or so of us were saved, mostly non-commissioned officers. Fortunately, being in the shaft, I was able to escape danger," Natarle explained.

"The captain?" Maria exclaimed, regaining command of her voice. "How could that be?"

"Oh, man," Mu sighed. "What a disaster. In any case, Lieutenant Ramius, I request permission to board the ship. My Mobile Armor has been shot down."

"Ah. Sure. Permission granted," Maria agreed.

"And who's that?" Mu asked, jerking his chin towards Kira.

"As you can see he is a civilian teenager," Maria explained. "For some reason he was in the factory district while we were under attack. I let him on the G-weapon. His name is Kira Yamato. As Thomas - sorry," she added. "This is Thomas Finn, a civilian doctor. As he said, thanks to Kira we were able to fight off the GINN and protect this one machine."

"He fought off a GINN?" Natarle exclaimed. The other military types looked at each other in disbelief. "That kid did that?"

"I came here as an escort to the young pilots trained to pilot that," Mu said to Maria, an enquiring expression on his face. "Where are they?"

Natarle cleared her throat. "We were bombed when they were in the control booth, being welcomed by the captain," she explained. "So they too..."

"I see," said Mu sadly. He paused in thought for a moment and then stepped towards Kira and the other students, the rest of the group trailing after him.

"Wh-what is it?" Kira asked nervously.

"You're a Coordinator, aren't you?" the pilot asked kindly, sending a ripple of concern through everyone in earshot - everyone except Thomas.

"Yes," Kira admitted.

Instantly, the four soldiers at the back of the group raised their rifles to port arms. Almost as swiftly, Tolle and Thomas interposed themselves between Kira and the soldiers. "Put those toys down before I take them off you!" Thomas snapped with such authority in his voice that the four had relaxed their grip on the almost before they took in who was speaking to them.

"You are in no position to give orders!" snapped Natarle.

"Lower your rifles," Maria ordered.

"Lieutenant!" Natarle protested. "Why...?"

"There's no puzzle, is there?" Maria chided gently. "The Heliopolis Colony belongs to a neutral state, after all. It is natural that some Coordinators would choose to come here to avoid being involved in the war. Am I wrong, Kira?" she asked.

"No, you're right," the boy said. "Especially with me being a first-generation Coordinator."

"'First-generation'?" one of the crew muttered in confusion.

"Meaning your parents are Naturals," Mu said for the benefit of the crewman. "Well, I apologise for causing such a stir. I was just curious. Nothing more."

Thomas snorted. The man played the innocent well, but there was a reason he'd asked the question in front of the crew. His reasons might have been good - Thomas couldn't have said for sure - but the action had been calculated.

"On my way here, I observed a fair number of simulations involving the guys who are expected to pilot this but not one of them could do much more than get it to move," Mu told them as he backed up and then started to walk back into the ship.

"Lieutenant, where are you off to?" Maria asked.

"Off to?" he asked, as if it were obvious. "I landed after being shot down, and the team waiting outside is Le Creuset's. He's one persistent fellow. If you ask me, I don't think we can afford to spend too much time here."

.oOo.

"I won't do it!" Kira snapped. "Please don't involve us any further in this war than you already have!"

"Kira..." Maria pleaded.

"What you say may be correct, that there is a war going on outside our world. But we don't agree with it! We dislike war! And that is why we chose to be here in neutral territory. Yet you..."

"Lieutenant Ramius!" called the intercom.

"What is it?" she asked, crossing the corridor to the intercom.

"There are mobile suits approaching!" Mu reported. "Come up here and take command. You're the captain."

"I am?" she exclaimed.

"I may have seniority," the pilot advised her. "But I don't know anything about this ship!"

Maria's shoulders slumped and then she deliberately squared them. "Understood. Then prepare the Archangel for takeoff! All hands to level one battle stations! What about your mobile armor?"

"No good! It's not ready!"

"Then, Lieutenant La Flaga, please take charge of the CIC." She turned back to the children, and to Thomas, who was deliberately wiping off his hands with a towel. "It's like you heard. We're entering another battle. With an alert level nine for the shelters, I can't let any of you off the ship now. If we can somehow overcome this and escape Heliopolis..."

"Tolle..." Mirialla whispered, taking refuge in her boyfriend's sheltering arm.

"You people are not being fair!" Kira spat.

"Kira..."

"And you'll tell us that there's only one mobile suit aboard the ship and that right now I'm the only one capable of operating it, right?"

"The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it untrue, lad," Thomas sighed. "The fates are careless of our wishes as a rule, and prone to whimsy to boot!" He shook his head. "I doubt that those mobile suits out there care that we're aboard more than they care about destroying the military's new toys."

"You want me to do it as well," Kira whispered.

Thomas shrugged his shoulders. "Only you can decide who you count as the precious people you want to protect, and what means you will use to defend them."

.oOo.

"Hey!" Tolle called from the crew lounge. "We can see what's going on outside on the monitor over here!"

Kira's other friends hurried to join him. If they were trapped on a warship while the young Coordinator struggled to protect them then the least that they could do was to cheer him on. Thomas followed them, taking a spot on one of the couches and sprawling out on it, long legs stretched out in front of it. For all the world he could have been watching a movie on the screen, rather than a life or death struggle.

Almost immediately, Kira clashed with a mobile suit carrying a large energy cannon. The Strike had been equipped with a different weapons pack - this one providing a long, slender sword. A glowing bar of energy ran along the edge and Kira was holding it like a katana. The other suit's shot missed him cleanly but severed a cable connecting the spine of the colony to the floor.

A second shot from the GINN ploughed into a large building, smashing it open. Clearly the attackers weren't worried about further damage to the colony. The spectators gasped as shot hit the Strike and then there was a cheer as it emerged from the smoke, having parried the blast with it's reinforced left forearm.

The ship rocked and they were all suddenly reminded that the fight involved more than just the duel between these two mobile suits. Their viewpoint moved as the Archangel banked to avoid heavy missiles and they got a front side view as the missiles shot past the ship, punishing the colony further.

"Look!" Thomas exclaimed, pointing. The Strike had thrown what looked like a truncated light saber at the GINN and there was a hiss from the crowd as it missed the target. "Wait for it..." Thomas declared, eye fixed on the movements of the weapon. "Now..." Like a boomerang, the spinning energy blade returned to it's parent suit, it's trajectory taking it through the GINN's leg and the ZAFT suit seemed to stumble in the air as it lost the benefit of the thrusters on that leg. Given the opening, Kira lunged closer, the long blade cutting in a swift arc that bisected the suit's torso.

There was an explosion, and suddenly one less enemy to fight. The handful of crewmen in the lounge cheered - for the first time they had seen one of the feared ZAFT mobile suits being defeated by a Alliance suit. The students looked uneasily between each other, not sure what to think, and Thomas leant back into the couch, his face inscrutable.

A moment later, a shot from the Archangel took out another of the GINNs, but the excess energy hit another structural member and it began to fall past the Strike as it hung in the air, facing the pinkish suit that was obviously one of it's stolen brothers. Both seemed to be fighting tentatively - they dashed past each other, but neither made even a cursory effort to strike despite their proximity.

The last of the GINNs died, but in killing the suit, the Archangel also destroyed the only control on the heavy missiles that it had fired, leaving them to go wild. Against the armoured Archangel, the strikes might have been crippling - if indeed the shots penetrated the active defenses. Against Heliopolis, they were the last straw and a dozen eyes went wide with horror as lines of destruction began to trace themselves along the colony floor.

The Archangel was shaken back as the atmosphere exploded out into space - this break up went far beyond anything that the emergency systems could cope with. The lighter mobile suits were less fortunate and were pulled apart, each expelled from the colony through a different rupture in the outer hull.

This battle was over...

And the death throes of a small world would be added to the nightmares of he who called himself Thomas Riley Finn.

.oOo.

Thomas, having had quite enough of sitting back and watching as the situation spiraled out of control, left the lounge to explore the ship and was in the hanger when Kira returned, carrying a damaged lifeboat from Heliopolis. The tall man was only too happy to help the civilians aboard the pod to clamber out of the top hatch.

He was vaguely aware that Kira was parking the Strike against a gantry that seemed designed for it and when he heard a gasp from the mobile suit's cockpit, he looked up from the redhead who was climbing out and saw the kid's little mechanical pet diving down towards the girl, Kira close behind him. The way the little gizmo acted, Thomas could almost think that it was the boy's familiar. Hmm, given that the kid was some sort of machinery whiz, perhaps that wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded.

The girl looked up and beamed. "Ah, it's you," she called. "Sai's friend!" She jumped up from Thomas's helping hand and coasted up in the zero gravity towards Kira, arms outstretched.

"F-Flay," the boy stuttered. "Is it really you, Flay Alistair? So you were on this boat!"

"Hey, what happened to Heliopolis?" she asked once their faces were level. "What happened there? What went on? I... I... I got separated... from Jessica and Misha in a store in Florence and I ran to a shelter alone, and then...! This is a ZAFT ship, right? What's gonna happen to us? What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Th-this ship belongs to the Earth Forces," Kira corrected her once he got a chance to talk through her babbling.

"You're lying!" she protested. "There's a mobile suit on board."

"No, that also belongs to the Earth Forces," the boy assured her. "B-But, boy am I glad. Sai and Mirialla are here too. You'll be fine."

'Glad' huh? Seems like the kid had a crush. Thomas shook his head and turned back to see a small girl nervously looking around over the rim of the hatch, her mother trying to persuade her to move forwards. Putting aside the adolescent byplay above him, Thomas reached down and scooped the girl up by the back of her dungarees, hauling her out of the pod before she could react. "Upsay-daisy, pup," he said, not unkindly, as her startled face passed his. "Hold onto my head for a minute, there's a good girl."

He didn't quite manage to refrain from flinching as two small hands latched onto his hair and offered his hand to the girl's mother, the woman startled and then choking down a chuckle at the expression on his face as the little girl pulled herself determinedly closer to his head.

"Mama," came the announcement from somewhere far too close to his ear. "He's got yellow hair!"

'Owowowowowow!' Thomas mouthed to the woman, who couldn't restrain her giggle at that point.

.oOo.

"I was meaning to ask," Thomas asked as he probed the injury carefully. "What's a Coordinator?"

Maria blinked at him in disbelief. "You don't know? Where have you been for the last fifty years?"

"For half of them, I hadn't been born," Thomas replied casually.

"But you stood up for Kira anyway?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "He's a good kid. That's more important than some damnfool label."

"Damnfool?" Maria asked, smiling slightly. "You're sure it's not important then?"

"Doesn't bother you, does it?" the healer observed, his face directed at where his fingers gently manipulated her shoulder rather than her face. "I trust your judgment, I'm just curious."

Maria gave him a puzzled look and gave the blond man a thumbnail summary of the Coordinators and the Naturals. At the end of it, Thomas merely shook his head with an amused twist to the corners of his mouth. He pulled out a length of bandage and checked the length. "You're healing nicely, by the way. A few more days and you won't need bandages any more."

"Does that mean that you won't be taking my shirt off anymore?" Maria asked impulsively, and blushed furiously as she realised how flirtatious that sounded.

Thomas chuckled and let his hand trace the line of her shoulder for a moment. "Only if you ask me nicely," he replied lightly. "Now, let's put this bandage on for you."

Damn the man!

.oOo.

Shortly afterwards, Thomas entered the small compartment being occupied by Kira and his friends. It wasn't much - bunks built into the walls and a passage between them. He guessed that it was probably just a standard crew berth and shuddered at what it must smell like after a couple of months of occupancy.

"I wonder where we're heading," asked Kuzzey as Thomas entered. No one seemed to notice him, engrossed in their own conversation.

"They changed course once, didn't they?" Sai observed. "I wonder if ZAFT is still around."

"They're after this ship and that mobile suit, right?" Tolle observed from where he stood, leaning against one of the bunks, facing Kira. "Then maybe they're still after us."

"Huh? Then what?" Flay protested. "Are you saying that we're less safe now that we boarded the ship? No way!"

Kira flinched and Thomas shook his head. Fret fret fret. "You're safer from losing life support," he advised the girl. "If Kira hadn't have spotted you, you'd have died in the boat before help arrived. Unfortunately, if these ZAFT fellows were going to be happy with just what they snatched the first time, they wouldn't have gone back into the colony for another fight - so they'll likely still be trying to do us in."

"Oh, Thomas," Mirialla said. "Do you know where we're going?"

He shrugged. "Not a clue. One place is as good as another for me... I suppose Maria knows, but I haven't seen her since I put the bandages back on -" There was a tap on his shoulder and he paused. "Help you, Lieutenant?"

"Is Kira Yamato in here?" Mu asked, trying to look past the larger man's shoulders.

"I'm here," Kira replied as Thomas turned slightly to let them see each other.

"Petty Officer Murdoch is furious," Mu explained. "He doesn't have enough people. He says you're responsible for maintaining your own machine."

"My machine?" Kira asked. "Wait, what do you mean, 'my machine'?"

"Let's just say that's what's been decided," the pilot told him. "The fact is, you're the only one capable of piloting that thing. It can't be helped."

"Sure I rode the thing twice, only because I had no choice!" the youngster protested. "But I'm not a soldier or anything!"

Mu rubbed his face. "So when the fighting starts again, you'll say that again. You'll refuse to pilot it, and we'll all die, right? Right now, you and I are the only ones who can protect this ship."

"But I..."

Thomas reached over and patted him on the shoulder. Kira looked up and saw the regret on the man's face as he growled something that the boy wasn't sure he could pronounce, much less comprehend. It was as much snarl as speech and Thomas frowned as he realised he'd used the wrong language. "Sorry, forgot who I was speaking to," he said. "Roughly translated, you can sing or make love when you wish, fighting you do when the other guy wants to."

"Right..." Kira admitted. "What you said about war and victims, back on Heliopolis."

"Yes," Thomas agreed. "No one's saying you've got a good deal out of this, but for better or for worse, we're all dependent upon you. I'm sorry."

Kira gulped. "I..." He shook his head and then bolted from the room.

The two adults in the room looked each other in the eye and grimaced. "Hey, Kira?" Tolle called after his friend.

"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Flay asked, confused. "You mean that that Kira kid was on...?"

"You heard that a mobile suit carried your lifeboat to this ship, right?" Sai explained. "That guy, Kira, was the one piloting it."

"What? Him? But how? How could he pilot a mobile suit?"

Thomas gave her a puzzled look. "I presume he puts his hands on the hand controls and his feet on the pedals. They have pedals?" he asked Mu suddenly. "They're not piloted through some sort of mind-machine interface thingy are they?"

Mu blinked. "Er... no."

"Oh. Good."

"You really liked giant robot shows when you were a kid, didn't you?"

"I really like giant robot shows now... what's your point?"

"Excuse me," Sai asked, interrupting what looked like it was going to be a long and probably pointless argument. "Where is the ship headed?"

"A Eurasian military fortress," Mu told him. "Well, we'll be lucky if they let us in without incident."


	2. Chapter 2

**January 26th, C.E. 71**

**Space, LaGrange Point Three**

Kira looked up from the floor of the corridor he was floating along when he heard his name called. Up ahead, he saw familiar faces, but below them were... Alliance uniforms?

"Tolle? All of you?" he exclaimed.

"Hi, Kira," Tolle greeted him as the little group drifted to a halt in front of the surprised teenager. The other students were at the front: Tolle, Sai and Kuzzey wearing two-tone blue jackets and white trousers, while Mirialla wore a violet and white jacket with a surprisingly short skirt.

"What's the deal with those outfits?" Kira asked.

"We've decided to help out with tasks aboard this ship," Sai told him. "They're understaffed, after all."

"They require us to wear military uniforms if we're going to be on the bridge," Kuzzey added.

"ZAFT's military uniforms are cooler, aren't they? With no badge of rank, these look kind of silly."

"Don't be a wise guy," snorted one of the _Archangel_'s crew from behind them, obviously having just kitted them out. Beside him, Thomas grinned toothily. He was wearing the same blue and white as the boys, but his jacket was unfastened and the sleeves rolled up past his elbows.

"We can't have just you fighting all the time," Tolle told Kira, looking serious all of a sudden.

"Given the situation we're in, we'll help," Mirialla chipped in. "However we can."

Kira looked down. What had he gotten his friends into?

"Move on, youngsters," the crewman ordered, giving them a little push. In a flurry of farewells, they coasted off down the corridor towards their new duty stations.

"Oh," the crewman called, turning to look at Kira. "And if you're taking off again, make sure you wear a pilot suit this time!"

"That's good advice," Thomas told the boy as he hung in the low gravity like a poster-boy for broken uniform regulations. Kira started, he hadn't realised that the man hadn't left with the others. "After all, it would only take one bitty little hole in your cockpit and you'll be out of air and out of luck."

"Yes," Kira agreed softly, studying the floor again.

"So," Thomas said in a leading tone. "How are you doing? Feeling stressed? Aggravated? Guilty." From Kira's flinch, the last word was probably closest. "Ah. Well, it's been a rough day or so, hasn't it? What's bothering you? Your friends? They are old enough to make their own choices, you know?"

"But if I hadn't gotten them involved..."

"Then what? They'd have been squashed when that ZAFT robot tangled with your robot back in the colony, or blown up along with this ship... What ifs aren't going to help you really," Thomas counselled. "Things have happened this way, and they want a bit of control over it. So they put on the pretty costumes and fight for their own survival, as well as your own."

"You're wearing one too."

"Yeah, but I was wearing all the clothes I had, and now they're getting washed." Thomas looked at Kira. "It's not just that though, is it? The _Aegis_... I was watching you fight it back inside of Heliopolis - you weren't really trying to fight it, were you?"

"No," Kira admitted, still looking at the floor. It was really much better than trying to look that knowing gaze in the eye.

The man sighed and leant against the wall, facing the boy. "And the ZAFT pilot wasn't exactly reeking of killer intent. You're presumably both smart kids, from what I've heard about Coordinators, so I guess you have good reason..."

"Athrun..." Kira began, haltingly, looking up. Thomas's eyes were weary, maybe a little sad. For a moment, the masks were down. "Athrun was... He is my best friend. I _can't_ kill him. I don't want to fight with him!"

Thomas nodded understandingly. "And I guess he feels the same way about you. You're not his enemy, but this ship is and he has his duty?"

"I... I think so."

"Well, that's difficult," Thomas agreed, stating the obvious being one of his many skills. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "There's an old saying that the best way to win a fight is to defeat your opponent without harming him. Tell me... about these mobile suits of yours... the cockpit's inside the chest, right?"

"Yes?" Kira replied hesitantly, wondering what Thomas had in mind.

"Well, I realise this is easier said than done, but you aren't exactly fighting this Athrun himself, are you? You're fighting his suit. So isn't there somewhere that you could hit the suit to, I don't know, disable it? Without hitting the cockpit? There's probably information on the _Aegis_ aboard - it was built to operate off the _Archangel_ right?"

Kira's eyes went wide. "And if the suit's disabled, I don't have to kill Athrun!"

"Don't get too confident," Thomas warned. "I respect your not wanting to harm your friend, but accidents still happen. And it will be much harder to target just a part of his suit rather than taking whatever shots you can."

.oOo.

Kira shook his head as he closed the clasps of the Earth Forces flightsuit. He'd never expected to see his friends all in military uniforms, having volunteered to work as part of the crew. All they said they'd done it so that he wouldn't be the only one fighting to protect them.

"So..." came the voice of Mu La Flaga from the door of the pilot's ready room. He was wearing own flightsuit, but Kira's had aquamarine trim rather than the older man's violet. "Judging from that outfit, I see that you've finally decided to do it."

Kira looked down. "You said so yourself, lieutenant," he said, picking up his helmet from where it drifted in the air beside him. "Right now, you and I are the only ones who can protect this ship. It's not that I wanna fight, but I do wanna protect this ship. Because of the people onboard."

"It's the same for all of us," Mu assured him, an unusually intent look the usually laidback pilot's eye. "You won't find too many people who wish to fight for no reason at all. We fight because unless we fight, we cannot protect."

Kira nodded his understanding.

"Okay, let me explain our plan to you..."

.oOo.

"Three thermal energy readings detected in the aft quarter. Distance, sixty-seven! They are mobile suits!"

"They came after all," Maria concluded.

"Prepare for anti-mobile suits battle," Natarle ordered from the CIC deck. "Missile launch ready from thirteen to twenty-four. Linear pad, variant, positive gunnel movement. Input the target data, hurry up."

A bustle of activity filled the small compartment. "Identified the fuselage!" came the report. "This is... X number... _Duel_, _Buster_, _Blitz_!"

"What?"

Maria gasped slightly, looking back through the bridge at the sensor operator, a reaction mimicked by many of the crew. "Putting the stolen G's in the front!" she exclaimed, eyes wide.

.oOo.

Outside, Kira's breath was ragged as he saw a lone mobile suit closing in on him. "One suit," he muttered.

Lieutenant La Flaga's words went through his mind. "Think only about protecting the ship and yourself."

"Protecting them..." he said with a firmness he did not feel. A moment later and his eyes went wide once again as a more detailed report appeared in front of them. "That mobile suit... Athrun?"

.oOo.

"Enemy mobile suits, spreading out!"

"Attack now!" Maria ordered. "CIC, what are you doing?"

Natarle blinked, drawn from her shocked reverie. "Laser guidance, is it ready?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Missiles from launchers thirteen to eighteen, launch! Load the Sledge Hammer..." the Ensign ordered, resuming direction of the _Archangel_'s formidable armament suite.

Outside, as flares and decoys painted space with light and electronic interference, missiles burst from the white ship's tail section, none of which was of concern to Kira and Athrun as their suits plunged towards each other, beam saber's igniting.

Kira focused, and as the two suits passed each other the _Strike_'s saber bit deeply into the leg of the _Aegis_, before they spun away from their respective vectors to face each other again.

"Kira?" Athrun called on an open channel, his voice betraying shock at the attack coming from his friend.

"Athrun," the young man replied, confirming his own identity and his own regrets at having struck at the other boy's mobile suit. He remembered the advice from Thomas: "...the best way to win a fight is to defeat your opponent without harming him... I respect your not wanting to harm your friend..."

"Stop it, take your sword back, Kira! We are not enemies! Am I right? Why must we fight against each other?"

"Athrun..."

"Why must you, a Coordinator like us, fight against us?" Athrun demanded.

"We're all human! Why are you attacking us!" Kira shouted back. He looked back at the _Archangel_ and saw three more of the Gundam suits attacking the ship, advancing through a firestorm of energy beams and cannon fire. "_Archangel_ is..."

He changed course back towards the embattled ship but the _Aegis_ cut him off. "Stop it, Kira! Why are you on Earth's side? Why are you fighting with the Naturals?"

"I'm not with the Earth Alliance!" Kira protested. "But I have friends on that ship! I won't let you hurt them! Why are _you_ with ZAFT? Why are you taking part in the war? You used to say that you hated wars! So why did you destroy Heliopolis?"

"Because those Naturals were making these things!"

"I know! But you didn't just take them! You -" Kira was cut off from finishing 'came back and destroyed the colony!' by the need to evade incoming shots from another mobile suit.

"Why are you just standing around, Athrun!" demanded the new pilot.

"Isaac!" Athrun protested.

The suit appeared as X-102 on Kira's sensors - another of the stolen Gundams. An energy blast battered at the _Strike_'s shield and Kira dodged the follow up shots. Well at least I'm keeping the two of them away from the _Archangel_, he thought.

"Just like a fly..." Isaac cursed as Kira evaded another volley of energy beams. "Are you going to keep on running away?!" He closed in with his own beam saber, leaving Athrun to wrestle with his conscience. More energy beams announced the arrival of the other two Gundams, drawn away from the _Archangel_ to deal with the lone mobile suit.

And now I have all four of them on me, Kira thought, watching his battery levels fade as he ducked and parried the attacks. Good for the others, but not for me! He was panting, as much from the tension as from the exertion.

Almost simultaneously, all five Gundams received signals from their respective motherships.

"_Vesalius_ was attacked?!" Isaac exclaimed in shock. "Damn it!"

The conversation was cut off as the two potent energy weapons mounted in the 'toes' of the _Archangel_, fired on the ZAFT carrier, inflicting even more damage than La Flaga's surprise attack had. Almost immediately, flares around the _Archangel_ signalled for Kira to return.

"Return signal!" Isaac shouted, recognising the standard colors for the signal. "Who said that! I've got to shoot him down!"

"Isaac! They ordered us to retreat!" Athrun shouted as the hotheaded pilot closed in again.

"Shut up, you coward!" Isaac bellowed. But this time he wasn't attacking in coordination with the other Gundams and Kira stopped him cold, punching three shots from his beam rifle - thus far unused - into the _Duel_, crippling ankle, knee and then hip with pinpoint accuracy, putting Isaac out of the fight until he could compensate for the new balance and the lost thrusters.

It was an opportunity that Athrun wouldn't give him. Almost instantly, the claws of the _Aegis_ locked around the damaged Gundam. "We're headed back to the ship," he ordered, and then, switching channel. "This isn't over, Kira."

.oOo.

"Hey, come on Doc!" called the chief flight engineer as Mu floated through the hanger towards the _Strike_. Chief Petty Officer Murdoch was one of the few survivors of the Earth Alliance contingent at Morgenroete's Heliopolis facility. The stocky NCO was floating next to the _Strike_'s open hatch.

"What's wrong?" Mu asked as he caught himself against the hatch.

"Well the kid's still in there," Murdoch explained. "The doctor's gone in and now he's blocking the hatch."

"Oh?" The pilot stuck his head into the tunnel-like entrance to the cockpit. "What's happening in there?" he called, unable to see much past Thomas' shoulders, although hints of aquamarine in the poorly lit compartment made it clear that Kira was still in the pilot's seat.

"We're just admiring the dancing girls," Thomas shot back sarcastically. "You should make this scene sometime, it's really something."

Murdoch choked back a laugh at the surprised look on Mu's face and there was a nervous giggle from inside that suggested that Kira was probably less restrained. A moment later, the helmet of Kira's flight suit was thrust back past the doctor's shoulder and Mu caught it.

"Make yourself useful," Thomas advised. "Put that away for him, would you?"

Mu backed up a moment and Thomas followed him out of the _Strike_ a moment later, towing a subdued looking Kira. The boy's violet eyes looked dull and he appeared exhausted. "Hey, kid," Murdoch asked in a worried voice. "Are you alright?"

"Hm," Kira nodded, his own voice faint.

"I'm prescribing some food and a bit of rest," Thomas advised drily. "Fortunately, nothing that should require raiding the pharmaceutical cabinet in the medical bay." He patted Kira's shoulder with one scarred hand. "Unfortunately, the food'll have to come from the military rations aboard - if you can call that food."

"It's... not bad..." Kira objected mildly.

Thomas sniffed derisively, hiding a smirk at having directed Kira's attention away from the scarcely completed battle.

.oOo.

**January 27th, C.E. 71**

**_Artemis_, LaGrange Point Three**

The _Archangel_ backed slowly into _Artemis_, passing through a deactivated panel of the fabled 'Umbrella' - actually a lightwave belt believed to be proof against anything short of nuclear weapons. Or human stupidity, Thomas mused as he glanced out of a porthole at the defenses and spared a moment to consider the history of 'impregnable' fortresses.

_Artemis_ itself was an asteroid several miles long, with the base buried inside and a quite astonishing array of devices mounted on the outside. The 'harbour', so to speak, was a cylindrical hole lined with metal, large enough for even the broad-winged _Archangel_ to fit easily within, despite the shape of another warship berthed ahead of it.

No sooner had clamps fixed onto the white-hulled ship, anchoring it in place, than other shapes began to move out from hatches and behind fortuitously placed cover. Within instants, Thomas could see armed men in space suits and craft that evidently filled a similar role to Mu's Mobile Armor, all not so discreetly aiming their weapons at the _Archangel_.

With a grimace, he pushed away from the porthole. Evidently matters would not go as smoothly here as had been hoped for.

.oOo.

Only moments later, spacesuited soldiers entered the ship through several airlocks, much to the surprise of the crew and civilians aboard.

"What is this?" Flay asked, as she and dozens of others watched scenes of outside the ship on a screen in the mess hall. "What's going on, Sai?" Behind the couple, Kira stared wide-eyed at the screen.

"Okay!" came a shout from the door. "Freeze!"

Everyone looked around and saw a squad of soldiers aiming automatic rifles in their direction. "Don't move!" the apparent leader shouted through his open visor.

.oOo.

A similar scene played out on the bridge, with spacesuited soldiers pointing their guns at the half-strength bridgecrew.

"What are you doing?" Maria demanded, only to have a rifle muzzle directed uncompromisingly towards her face.

"Commander Biddulph," Natarle protested. "I request that you give us an explanation for this! We've..."

"I'm just blockading the ship's controls and fire control systems as a security measure," the Eurasian officer replied. He'd first boarded the _Archangel_ to verify her identity and then to direct her into _Artemis_'s waiting arms... arms that now seemed rather less welcoming. In all that time, he'd never shown himself to be other than a stuffed shirt.

"Blockading?" Natarle exclaimed. "But the way you're...!" She looked utterly shocked as her step forward provoked one of the soldiers to move closer, his rifle close enough that if he fired she'd probably be killed just by the muzzle flash, never mind the bullet.

"Your ship is not registered, and so naturally we have no identification code for it," Biddulph told her. "Given the circumstances, we did permit you to enter port but unfortunately we have not yet recognised you as an ally."

"But...!" Under the cover of Natarle's protest, Maria eyed Biddulph's smug expression warily. The Atlantic Federation, who had constructed the _Archangel_ and the G-series, had been rivals of the Eurasian Federation for decades, until the conflict against the PLANTs had brought them together under the banner of the Earth Alliance. Doubtless, the commander of the station was drooling at the thought of obtaining the cutting-edge military technology aboard the _Archangel_... and since no one on Earth knew where they were, it was only too possible that the ship - and crew - could convienently vanish to hide the theft.

"This is a military facility," Biddulph continued. "I'd like you to at least understand that. Now, I would like the officers to come with me. You shall explain the situation to us."

.oOo.

In a relatively isolated corner of the _Archangel_ one member of the crew had managed to avoid being captured. Thomas was squinting out of a tiny port without letting one of the troopers outside see him. It was only a matter of time until the Eurasians realised that they were missing someone - even if the rest of the crew didn't give him away, he was pretty sure that he was on the crew lists.

And the one thing he did not plan was to get caught. The one thing that every magican knows is that tricks require some degree of concealment - and staging an escape from inside custody would be much much harder.

It would be relatively easy to take control of the _Archangel_ back. The soldiers aboard were in small groups guarding key locations and Thomas was sure he could neutralise them all before any alarm was raised. But there were technical crews aboard, looking over the ship... and the Strike, no doubt, and they were more numerous. The chances were good that one of them would manage to alert _Artemis_ that a break out was imminent. And what if the _Archangel_ was limited? Maria and the other officers weren't aboard and breaking out of the station would be rather less than trivial as such tasks went.

No... the solution would have to lie on the station. And that was where Thomas would be going.

It wasn't humanly possible, of course. He didn't have the training to use a shuttle or a space suit to cross the vaccum that lay between ship and station. Even if he tried, he'd just make himself vulnerable.

But Thomas Riley Finn wasn't human.

His eyes still fixed on the port hole and his reflection beyond it, he crossed the Gauntlet that lay between the material and the spiritual. As always, the transition stripped away the illusions of flesh and the wolf that flew between two equally empty points in the aetherial umbral realm did so on great feathery wings, aiming for a carefully calculated point that should be well within the stace station.

The risks were considerable. Travel too far and he could find himself inside the solid rock of the asteroid. Travel not far enough and he would emerge into vaccum and be visible to everyone in the docking bay, even should he escape back into the umbra. And neither _Archangel_ nor _Artemis_ had been in their current locations long enough to have cast their shadows across the Gauntlet.

The spirit that used on occasion the name of Thomas Finn stepped across the Gauntlet once more, the white feathers following the grey-brown fur without hesitation, the air rippling where he had once been.


End file.
